Browning, Elizabeth (Moulton) Barrett

Click a letter for the index

Or search the encyclopaedia:

 

 

Go

 

Click image to enlarge
English poet. In 1844 she published Poems (including ‘The Cry of the Children’), which led to her friendship with and secret marriage to Robert Browning in 1846. She wrote Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850), a collection of love lyrics, during their courtship. She wrote strong verse about social injustice and oppression in Victorian England, and she was a learned, fiery, and metrically experimental poet.

Elizabeth Barrett was born near Durham. Her early years were spent in Herefordshire, but later, after a financial setback, the family lived in London. She suffered illness as a child, led a sheltered and restricted life, and was from the age of 13 regarded by her father as an invalid. In this cramped atmosphere her chief interests were literary. A brief stay in Torquay, Devon, with her brother Edward ended with his death by drowning in 1840. With the appearance of Poems (1844), her reputation was established. She was freed from her father's oppressive influence by her marriage to Robert Browning and moved to Italy in 1846. The couple settled in Florence, where their son Robert was born in 1849. Her health improved and she produced her mature works, including a new and greatly enlarged edition of her Poems (1850), containing the Sonnets from the Portuguese. They are probably her best work, and their beauty of sentiment and musical phrasing is undeniable. She died in Florence, and a volume of Last Poems was issued in 1862.

Known as ‘white sun in blue sky’, the flag of Chinese revolutionary leader Sun Zhong Shan appears in the canton. The rays of the sun represent 12 traditional Chinese hours (each equalling two hours) symbolizing progress. Red is a traditional Chinese colour. Effective date: 8 October 1928. >>